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S H A R P S
S A F E T Y
surgeon has everything he needs, and at the same time, to look out for yourself and everybody you're working with. How can you be fully present when you have to consistently and constantly multitask?
We're always concerned about our patients' safety, but we tend to be less focused on our own. And our environment is fraught with hazards. Raising awareness so that we're not only mindful about not harming patients, but also about not letting anything happen to us, requires a significant attitude change.
We're always
concerned
about our
patients'
safety, but
we tend to
be less
focused on
our own.
When our occupational health group and staff members worked together to assemble and train observational teams, it was a chance to have conversations about safety that never really take place in a concerted way — to bring to the surface the root causes of injuries. Talking to people in the room and asking questions while things are happening is immensely important. That dedicated conversation about details simply never happens otherwise.
The questions may be simple, like, "If the needle box were in a different place, would it make needlesticks less likely?" or "Do you recap needles and do you know recapping needles is a high-risk event?" or "How do you pass or receive sharps so you avoid injury?" But they lead to important feedback.
On the lookout
We're also reaching out to other ORs in our community to identify best practices we can consider adopting in our environment. In fact, our team just completed a field trip to a neighboring hospital where they use safe zones (see "3 Keys to Safe Passing"). They draw a circle or a rectangle on the tray and designate that as the safe zone during surgery. Their safe zone practice is hard-wired as it's discussed during the pre-surgery time out. That's something we can learn from. We're also implementing and investigating several other changes, including:
